Over here at Eat Like a Man, we talk a lot about steak. We've done a whole steak issue. We've shown you how Tom Colicchio and Andrew Carmellini cook steak indoors. We've provided a comprehensive overview of steak basics, and a very basic lesson on how to cook steak outside. We've even shown you how to cook steak in the fireplace. We've published what I consider to be the best essay ever written on the subject, by the great Tom Junod. But we haven't presented a master class on how to cook steak over live fire.

I am here to give that lesson. It's warm, and we are no longer reduced to the grim expedient of cooking steaks in pans and broilers. Steak has been cooked over fire since the Late Pleistocene and there's no reason to stop now, not one that I can see. So here, then, are five master tips on grilling steak over wood or coal fires.

1. Steak should be cold. Very cold. For years there has been a myth that steak ought to be brought to room temperature before cooking. This, in my opinion, is dumb. One of the reasons you cook over fire is to get a brown, crusty surface. But you also want a nice pink or red interior. The longer you can fire the meat without overcooking it, the better. This means cooking steak cold. Period.

2. Steak should be "scruffed." This was one of many lessons I learned from chef Adam Perry Lang, who in turn got it from Jamie Oliver. Steak, like pork rind, is better when it has more surface area to brown. And one way to get more surface area, and a nicer texture to boot, is to rip the meat up a little bit. I rub it over the fine side of a box grater, but making some shallow random cuts with a knife will work too.

3. Steak should be cooked asymmetrically. The almost universal advice to cook steak for the same amount of time on both sides is, in my opinion, yet another mistake. Why? You have only a short amount of time to crust that meat up. You need to max out one side, and then give the other just enough heat to give the surface some color and to cook the steak all the way through. Otherwise, neither side will get truly brown. And guess what? The bottom surface is going to steam and soften while the steak sits on the cutting board anyway. So for a one-and-a-half-inch steak, I typically hit it for eight or nine minutes over high heat, and then three or four minutes at most on the reverse side. Then it goes over to the cool zone for a few minutes to finish off and absorb smoke.

4. Wood chips aren't there to smoulder. You may have a bag of hickory chips lying around; if not, you can get one at Home Depot. A lot of people assume these are meant to be soaked in water and then added for smoking. Why? The last time you burned wood, did it fail to release smoke? Was it like a propane-fired yule log? No. It gave smoke, and it burned hot. Wet chips just release steam, which is the last thing you want in a grill. No, I throw a handful of chips over my coals, which gives me a steady heat and the direct wood flavor that no charcoal can ever provide.

5. Make a board dressing. I won't recapitulate all of Adam Perry Lang's genius grill techniques; it's worth buying his book, Charred & Scruffed, and memorizing every word of it. But one of his greatest innovations needs to be broadcast. Lang slathers his steaks with herbs and butter and other good things, and when the meat is ready for slicing, he pours that stuff on the cutting board and then uses it to dress the steak slices. Every one gets covered in thick, red, sticky myoglobin—a.k.a. juice—and herbs and butter too. Or olive oil. Or whatever else you want to add. This might be the most important steak innovation in my lifetime. Every little piece of steak is flavored on all sides: a mini steak. For my part, I'll never slice steak nude again.

There are many more master tips out there, and we'll have more of them in the coming months. In the meantime, set these to work.